Defining the Project & Stakeholders
The foundational document that formally authorizes a project and outlines its initial scope, objectives, and participants.
What is the Project Charter?
The lowest hierarchical level of a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that can be assigned to a specific owner and tracked.
What is a Work Package?
An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative impact on at least one project objective.
What is a Project Risk?
In Earned Value Management, this value represents the budgeted cost of the work actually performed up to a specific point.
What is Earned Value (EV)?
The short, daily sync meeting in Scrum where team members align on progress, goals, and impediments.
What is the Daily Scrum / Standup?
According to Verzuh, this critical document details the business justification, cost-benefit analysis, and expected ROI before initiating full planning.
What is the Business Case?
The scheduling technique where the sequence of dependent activities determines the minimum possible duration to complete the project.
What is the Critical Path Method (CPM)?
Verzuh highlights this proactive tool used to identify, log, analyze, score, and plan responses for project uncertainties.
What is the Risk Log (or Risk Register)?
Uncontrolled expansion to product or project scope without adjustments to time, cost, and resources.
What is Scope Creep?
The Agile role responsible for maximizing product value, writing user stories, and prioritizing the product backlog.
What is the Product Owner?
A grid or matrix that analyzes individuals or groups based on their level of interest and influence/power on project outcomes.
What is the Stakeholder Analysis Matrix (or Power/Interest Grid)?
Practical rule of thumb for right-sizing work package: no task should be smaller than 8 hours or longer than this many hours.
What is 80 hours (the 8/80 Rule)?
Budget set aside specifically for 'known unknowns' identified during the risk management planning process.
What is Contingency Reserve?
A Cost Performance Index (CPI) of 0.82 indicates that the project is running in this condition relative to its budget.
What is Over Budget?
The team development model detailed by Verzuh featuring Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning.
What is the Tuckman Model?
The written document defining deliverables, boundaries, and acceptance criteria agreed upon between customer and supplier.
What is the Statement of Work (SOW)?
Compressing a schedule by taking sequential tasks and running them in parallel, which increases risk and rework.
What is Fast-Tracking?
A structured meeting or review highlighted in Verzuh's quality chapter to inspect deliverables against predefined standards before handoff.
What is a Quality Audit (or Quality Inspection)?
A formal committee of key stakeholders responsible for reviewing, evaluating, and approving/rejecting requested baseline changes.
What is the Change Control Board (CCB)?
A lean metric representing the total duration from when a request is initiated until it is delivered to the customer.
What is Lead Time (or Cycle Time)?
The strategic tool recommended by Verzuh that outlines who needs what project information, when, how often, and through which medium.
What is the Communication Plan?
The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start date of any immediate successor activity.
What is Free Float (or Free Slack)?
The risk response strategy where a team decides to change project plans completely to eliminate the hazard or hazard condition entirely.
What is Risk Avoidance?
The EVM formula used to calculate Schedule Variance (SV).
What is SV = EV - PV (Earned Value minus Planned Value)?
A leadership philosophy where the project leader focuses primarily on enabling and removing obstacles for the team.
What is Servant Leadership?